Field of Invention
The disclosure relates to a Lactobacillus strain and an application thereof. More particularly, the disclosure relates to a Lactobacillus strain for treating syndromes and related complications of autoimmune diseases and a composition thereof.
Description of Related Art
An autoimmune disease is a disease that a human body's immune system attacks normal cells of his body. Such patient has weaker normal immunity but stronger aberrant immunity. The “aberrant immunity” refers to the immune system that recognizes the normal cells of its own body as foreign virus or bacteria and targets the normal cells for attacking and clearing them out of the body. The normal immune system of a human body provides a physically protective mechanism to target foreign antigens and abnormal cells, such as tumor cells, for attacking and clearing them out of the human body. However, sometimes the immune system may produce some antibodies against the normal cells or normal cellular components. Therefore, some aberrant excessive inflammation or tissue damage may cause diseases and adversely effect health.
Common autoimmune diseases include coeliac disease, type 1 diabetes mellitus, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Sjögren's syndrome, multiple sclerosis (MS), Hashimoto's thyroiditis, Graves' disease, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), aplastic anemia, polymyositis and dermatomyositis, as well as scleroderma.
Among those, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease, in which the body's immune system turns against all organs or tissues of the body itself, including skin, joints, heart, blood vessels, liver, kidneys, brain and nervous system. In general, the course of SLE is alternatively aggravated and released, and the onset is usually unpredictable. This disease, which may occur in people of any age, most commonly occurs in young women, and 90% of SLE patients are women. The signs and symptoms of SLE vary greatly in different individuals. When onset of SLE, some patients have severe symptoms with the important organs such as the central nervous system, kidney, heart and so on, whereas some other patient only have mildly joint symptoms during life. As for the incidence, above 90% of the SLE patients have joint pain or arthritis, 70% to 80% of the SLE patients have skin erythema or discoid erythema, 40% to 50% of the SLE patients have pleurisy or pericarditis, 40% to 50% of the SLE patients have lupus nephritis, 20% to 60% of the SLE patients have central nervous system violations, and 20% of the SLE patients have thrombocytopenia.
At present, the cause of the SLE is still unclear, but it is believed that SLE is related to genes, immunodeficiency, viral infections, UV, and drugs. Recent studies have found that, SLE patients have much higher incidence of liver abnormalities (such as hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, jaundice, abnormal liver function, abnormal liver enzymes and so on) and the cardiovascular disease (CVD, such as myocardial infarction (MI)) than normal people, and the atherosclerosis is also highly associated with SLE. Some studies with animal models reveal that significant inflammation and apoptosis of liver and heart occur in SLE mice.
SLE is currently incurable, but its symptoms can be treated. Medicines are important to the treatment of SLE. Physicians prescribe mediation to treat a SLE patient depending on symptoms, the different organ injuries and different severities. Common medications used to treat SLE manifestations include the followings.
(1) Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs):
NSAIDs can be used to treat arthritis, pleurisy, and other lighter inflammatory symptoms. Gastrointestinal side effects are the major problem of NSAIDs. Fortunately, a new generation of selective inhibitor of type II cyclooxygenase (COX-2) has been commercially marketed, and it causes much less gastrointestinal side effect than the traditional NSAIDs.
(2) Antimalarial Drugs:
Most commonly antimalarial drug is hydroxychloroquine (or the brand name of Plaquenil). The clinical uses show that the antimalarial drugs have a fairly good efficacy on the treatment of skin symptoms, arthritis, and other mild systemic symptoms of SLE patients. The antimalarial drugs also can decrease the recurrence of SLE.
(3) Cortisol:
Cortisol is generally known as the “American panacea” or “steroids.” Cortisol is the most important drugs for treating SLE. Higher dose of steroids should be used in severe conditions of internal organ damages such as lupus nephritis, nervous system lupus, lupus pneumonitis, hemolytic anemia, or thrombocytopenia and so on. The physician also considers supplying an intravenous pulse steroid therapy with high dose of steroids, so that the condition is controlled as soon as possible, and the dose of the steroids is then gradually decreased to a minimal level when clinically well controlled.
(4) Immunosuppressing Drugs:
Immunosuppressing drugs are mainly used to inhibit the activity of the immune system, so as to achieve good control and efficacy of the autoimmune diseases. Immunosuppressing drugs are usually used with steroids, so as to decrease the doses of the steroids and to effectively control the stubborn disease. Common immunosuppressing drugs include azathioprine (Imuran®), cyclophosphamide (Endoxan®), cyclosporine, methotrexate (MTX) and so on.
Probiotics or probiotic bacteria generally refer to live microorganisms originating from human bodies and beneficial to intestinal tract health, or some microorganisms supplied from outside sources and beneficial to human health, for example, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and some yeasts. 70% of human immune system is located in the digestive tract. As early as the late nineteenth century, Russia scientists have observed that probiotics have health effect to human body. Previous studies have shown that more than ⅓ SLE patients have gastrointestinal symptoms, and 10% SLE patients have gastrointestinal pathological changes at the first onset. It is currently known that probiotics are capable of restoring intestinal flora balance, stimulating mucosal immunity, improving gastrointestinal discomfort and improving urogenital flora.
Recently, some studies attempt to treat SLE with Lactobacillus. The obtained results show that the single Lactobacillus strain can promote the production of anti-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-10 (IL-10) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), to treat the autoimmune diseases such as SLE.
However, the aforementioned studies seldom investigated whether LABs is used to treat the symptoms of the autoimmune diseases (such as SLE) and their complications (such as cardiac and hepatic disease), and did not propose any regulatory mechanism that LABs may be involved in SLE treatments.
Side effects often occur in drugs for the treatment of autoimmune diseases (such as SLE), and patients with such chronic diseases must be treated and controlled for a long time. Therefore, there is a need to use native Lactobacillus strains to develop products that are capable of treating symptoms and complications of autoimmune diseases, so as to achieve the improvement, control, remedy, or prevention of the patients with the symptoms and complications of autoimmune diseases, as well as the development of other applications of Lactobacillus strains.